


Jaws of Death

by scarredsodeep



Series: Girl Out Boy [3]
Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Bisexuality, Bisexuals Exist!, Concerts, Established Relationship, F/F, Fall Out Girl, Femslash, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Genderbend, Genderflop, Girl!Pete, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, Humor, Lesbian Character, Nonbinary Character, Oral Sex, Pre-Hiatus (Fall Out Boy), Queerplatonic Relationships, Smut, Take This To Your Grave (Album), Tales from 2003, True Love, Van Days, girl out boy, girl!patrick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 09:52:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16473293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarredsodeep/pseuds/scarredsodeep
Summary: Girl Out Boy celebrates Halloween! Set one year after the events ofGirl Out Boy.





	Jaws of Death

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween, dearest loves. I know Sell Out Girl is rough, and you deserve sweet TTYG silliness and love. Let's heal all our hearts. Thank you to everyone who's been here for me during this shitty month of heartbreak. I hope this fic can be a way of expressing my vast affection and appreciation for you. No tricks & only treats! <3

__  


 

Last Halloween, Pat Stump came out to her best friend. Then they played a killer show in a shitty dive bar that cast good luck over their whole year, made their every move and motion fate. It wasn’t the night she and Pete had their first kiss, wasn’t the night they started being _together_ in the way Pat already knows is followed by _forever_ , wasn’t the night their band got signed to a label, wasn’t their biggest or most important show. Andy didn’t even play with them that night. But Pat thinks of it as the beginning anyway.

So this October 31st, she’s alive with potential, not coasting towards a wall but crackling over it. Five months ago, Fall Out Boy put their first record out, and since then they’ve been touring nonstop in their broken-down van, filming semi-amateur music videos, working crap jobs and making no money at all. It’s all better than Pat ever dreamed.

Last year she kissed Pete for the first time, and her whole heart tumbled out onto her tongue, and Pete swallowed it before either of them realized what had happened. She’s fallen into a love with richer texture and deeper seams than any song on the radio, any rom com, any novel about brawny Scotsman in kilts prepared her for.

Trick or treat? It’s no question. This has been the greatest year of Pat’s life.

 

“What are you supposed to _be_ , though?” Jo asks. She’s completely hogging the bathroom mirror, putting the finishing touches on her Slash costume.

Pete pouts. “I’m Josie and you know it,” she says. “It would make more sense if certain _bandmates of mine_ had agreed to be Pussycats.”

Jo covers her incredulous look with round, reflective sunnies. “I spend enough of my life being a back-up act to you,” she play-grumbles. “This is my one night a year to be whatever wildest fantasy I can dream of.”

“And for you that was a dude guitarist?”

Jo fluffs her giant curly wig over her leather vest-clad shoulder. Her expression is unreadable. “Heresy! Slash is so much more than a dude guitarist and we both know it.”

Pete sticks out her tongue and dons her cat ear headband. “Listen. I suggested we do the Thundercats. I suggested we do Mario Brothers. I suggested we do Pulp Fiction. None of you were even _remotely_ cooperative with my group costume suggestions, so don’t pretend this is about the existential differential of being a Josie vs. a Pussycat. We’re gonna look like idiots up there with random costumes.”

“ _Some_ of us are going to look like idiots,” Jo says. She pointedly looks Pete up and down, from platform boots to mismatched cheetah-print mini and crop.

Pete opens her mouth to retort, but instead a deafening windbreaker swish crashes down the hallway. Pete and Jo both spin to face the doorway, where a tattered green garbage bag creature looms.

“Andy, you scared the shit out of me,” Jo says.

“That’s the point. Halloween,” Andy explains. When they move, the torn-up garbage bags knotted all around their limbs and draped over their body flutter and crinkle. Their stubbly shaved head is smeared with green greasepaint; it drips down their face in a such a way that it’s impossible to determine whether it’s intentional.

“Ummmm,” Pete says. “So are you the one of us who’s gonna look like an idiot, or…?”

“I’m a _sea monster_ ,” Andy informs her. “For your information. An ungendered creature of the deep.”

“You _look_ like a conceptual art installation about the bloodstains of capitalism on recycling.”

“Or like the bag the proverbial cat got out of.”

“Or what happens to sea turtles when you don’t clip plastic rings from six-packs.”

“Or—”

“Do I look like a person who needs to find some new friends? Because I feel like one,” Andy interrupts. Jo and Pete are clutching each other to stay upright at this point, they’re laughing so hard. “What’s Pat dressing up as?” they ask, changing the subject.

“She won’t tell anyone,” Pete says. “She just says _you’ll see_ in this ominous voice.”

It’s obvious Pete’s a little crabby not to be in on whatever the secret is.

“Maybe her costume is that she’s going to lure us into the woods and kill us,” Jo suggests. “Y’know. A serial killer surprise.”

Andy and Pete blink at her in horror. “That’s not—that’s not a costume, Jo,” Andy manages.

Jo shrugs, turning back to the mirror and fluffing her giant halo of black curls. “Okay, well, like Halloween hijinks, then. Trick or treat or _DIE_! You know?”

“I can’t believe I sleep behind an unlocked door in the same house as this madwoman,” Pete mutters to Andy.

Andy crosses themself, crinkling. “Please start locking your door,” they mutter back. “You and Pat _never_ have clothes on.”

 

Pat gets off work, gets into her costume as quickly as possible, and rushes to meet her friends at the Knights of Columbus hall to set up for their show. They beat out two other bands and a senior sockhop for reserving the space tonight, and they’re going on last, closers on Halloween night. It’s a big deal. And not to brag, but she’s pretty sure her costume is perfect. She ties the mask behind her head and adjusts the green belt at her waist, surveys herself in the mirror that she doesn’t have to fight anyone over for once. Yes: it’s perfect.

She expects to feel stupid on the bus, or at least exposed—her shorts are short and tight, stretched over her generous ass—but half the passengers seem to be in costume. Hers is actually pretty modest, consisting of the shorts, a blue t-shirt, a green towel cape, green rainboots and green dishwashing gloves with the fingertips cut off. Her biggest problem is how cold it is on the walk between the bus stop and the Knights of Columbus hall. She zips her puffy jacket to the chin and walks as quickly as she can.

Kids are already lining up outside the hall, which is its own kind of miracle. They’re signed to a label and they’ve got a record out, and they’re well-known in the Chicago scene, but they’re small change: a girl band in a dude’s world. People have to decide whether they’re sluts or crazy bitches or whatever the third option is for a girl these days before they’ll even listen to the songs and decide if _those_ are any good. So Pat feels a juicy thrill ripple through her gut, walking past the line. Inside, she shucks her jacket and stuffs it behind an amp as quickly as possible, so it doesn’t ruin the grand reveal of the costume. She’s 19 years old, which means she’s had 19 Chicago Halloweens where the profile and overall effect of her costume has been totally ruined by protective weather gear. Have you ever been dazzled by the grace a ballerina in snowpants? No? Then give up your dreams of elegantly trick-or-treating in northern Illinois. Dress as a yeti or don’t go at all.

Her friends are fussing with cords and sound balances and tuning. It’s so cold in here that the guitars keep losing tune, but once the kids start packing in and dancing, Pat knows they’ll be sweating like heatstroke. She’s all prepared for the big reveal, but no one is looking at her. Pat strikes a heroic pose, fisting her hands to her hips, and waits. After a minute she clears her throat. Still nothing. Finally she calls out, startling herself with her own volume, “Watch out!”

Jo nearly drops her guitar. Andy, who appears to be dressed as some kind of avant garde Oscar the Grouch, says, “Oh my god, you’re Fall Out Boy.”

“We’re _all_ Fall Out Boy,” Pat says. She’s so pleased with her own cleverness.

Pete nearly clotheslines herself with her own guitar cord, she rushes to Pat so quickly. “You look _amazing_ ,” she gushes, looking Pat up and down in a way that makes Pat’s belly tighten and squirm in delicious anticipation. “I’m jealous. I’m totally jealous. You upstaged me on Halloween. I would have been Radioactive Man if you’d said! We could’ve done a _whole thing_!”

Pat tugs Pete to her by the guitar strap. Pete’s bass thuds against Pat’s chest, followed by Pete. Pat smiles, biting her lip from the inside, and kisses her girlfriend on the mouth. Pete makes a soft sound in her throat and melts into her. Pat will never, ever get tired of this. “‘m gonna kiss you forever,” Pat murmurs into Pete’s lips. Pete drags air in between her teeth and kisses Pat harder. Pat stumbles a step back, her hand going to Pete’s waist to steady them both, and somewhere in the background Jo starts gagging loudly.

“Here, vomit into one of these,” Andy offers with a great rustling, untying one of their ‘sleeves.’

Taking the hint, Pat breaks the kiss, more than a little breathless. She spends another moment staring dazzled at Pete’s perfect, open face, then drops her hands from Pete’s waist and returns to earth.

“Okay, what can I help with?” she asks, heading towards the stage. Pete catches her hand as it falls and trails after, their palms pressed together like a promise. Like never letting go.

 

Okay, covering themself in trash bags before engaging in a high-intensity, very hot activity may have been a stupid idea. Like trying to have sex on a slip’n’slide, it’s just not going very well. Andy has never sweat so much in their _life_ , and the chafing is getting intense. They feel less like a sea monster and more like garbage island with each passing song.

“You wish you were a Mario Brother yet?” Pete yells, hopping onto the drum riser and grinning like a wild thing, ripping her bass apart in time with Andy’s sticks.

“I love this costume!” Andy yells back. They try to mop sweat off their forehead with their arm, but there’s so much sweat pooled in the folds of the trash bags that they end up wetter than before. Sweat burns their eyes. They look at Pete helplessly, unable to stop playing and let the rhythm section fall apart—Pete’s a genius, but she definitely can’t carry the rhythm section alone—and she takes pity. She stops playing long enough to swab Andy’s sopping face with a towel and kiss their forehead. Then she hops off the riser, landing expertly on platform heels, and the show goes on.

And it’s an incredible fucking show. The crowd is packed with girls in costume, and they are not holding back. Andy sees elbows sharp as daggers flying with the full force of mayhem, dude’s throats be warned. Heels kick and hair flies while the girls in the pit jump and scream. No one is surprised when Pete rides out onto the crowd and they press her into the drop ceiling. The energy flows like a seance, like she could float up there without them touching her, like when they’re together like this they’re capable of anything. Andy drums with a force greater than themself, feels connected to something unstoppable. Jo spins and spins and spins in her corner of the stage, the pegs of her guitar gleaming razor-bright, all her teeth bared in a powerful grimace of joy. Pat’s torn her cape off at some point, and she’s strutting around up there like her rainboots are stilettos on a catwalk. Her hips cut indecent swirls around the mic stand, and she shines with sweat and glitter. Her lips snarl and her canines catch the light and the words bursting from her chest and lungs are richer and more full of magic than any incantation. The whole night is a spell being cast. Andy knows in each screaming blood cell that this night will change them forever.

 

As all great things must, the show gets shut down by the police.

The dancing has just hit a point past _frenzied_ and girls in the crowd have bloodied their mouths against Pete’s mic, lifting her up and screaming along. It’s a blood oath, a promise to each other and to their fans: this is just the beginning. You’re going to be hearing the name _Fall Out Boy_ for a long time. The night feels like a ritual, like it’s building to something. Pete dances close behind Pat, grinding against her, pressing her forehead against her, and somehow Jo isn’t even surprised when Pete kisses Pat’s neck, when Pat tips her head back so Pete can leave a mark on her throat, when Pat turns and catches Pete’s mouth with her own and they kiss like that, onstage in front of everyone, and the dance hall screams and seethes with life, and when Pat turns back to the mic her eyes are glazed with dopamine and brilliant like stars and she sets fire to every word that comes off her tongue, and the whole building echoes and throbs with one shared heartbeat. Anything is possible and they are _becoming_.

So yeah. That’s about when the police show up. They’ve packed the hall way over capacity and the noise is outrageous, and it’s the suburbs, for god’s sake: intervention is inevitable. Still, armed officers bursting in both entrances seconds before the power gets cut adds a certain level of mythicism and drama to an already adrenaline-packed night. Jo feels slightly smug about it: it’s a better closer than anything they could have played, even Saturday. The police have just guaranteed that this night will become legend.

They get the van loaded while the police empty the place out. A few kids linger in the alley, hopeful, and Jo presses hands and whispers upcoming show dates and trades shrink-wrapped copies of _Take This To Your Grave_ for sweaty ten dollar bills. The bounce of a flashlight beam approaches, a man’s booming voice asking, “Which one of you ladies is in charge, here?” and the four of them exchange looks.

Jo’s not sure what the penalty for violating the fire code is, but she knows she doesn’t want to face it. Pete’s the only one of them wearing impractical shoes, so she thinks they have a pretty good chance. “RUN FOR IT!” Jo shrieks. She grabs Andy by the arm and tears off across the parking lot, into the neighboring woods.

Screaming and laughing and stumbling through underbrush. The cops must have better things to do than chase misbehaving musicians through the woods on Halloween, because the flashlight beams fall back quickly. Jo keeps crashing forward, at some point getting separated from Andy, on the blind faith that suburbs woods can’t possibly go that deep. Surely she’ll bust out into a nicely manicured neighborhood at any moment? But the woods get deeper, and it stops being funny. She can’t hear the squish-swoosh of Andy’s costume anymore. She can’t hear her friends’ footsteps or crashing or laughter. It’s pitch black and nearing midnight on Halloween, and suddenly Jo is lost in the woods and _scared_.

She skids to a stop right before she trips over a fallen log and eats shit. “Guys? Andy? Hello?” she calls out. Her voice is half panicked yell, half whisper. She wishes like hell they hadn’t watched The Blair Witch Project last night. After, Andy leaned over on the couch and whispered, “ _Forget about the Blair Witch. Have you ever heard of the Evanston Hag?_ ” Jo said, “No, stop it, I’m not interested in your _lies_ ,” because everyone knows she’s gullible and they’re always trying to freak her out. They’re nowhere near Evanston tonight, Jo comforts herself. They’re just in a way more remote _and excessively woodsy_ suburb. It’s fine. Everything is fine.

“Hello?” Jo calls again, but she admits it, she’s afraid that if she’s too loud, a hag is going to leap out of the woods and perform Satanic rituals on her. “Guys?”

She doesn’t hear anything that sounds like her friends, but she _does_ hear a slithering, dragging sort of noise. Jo jumps half out of her skin and starts moving again. No sense staying still and waiting for the monsters to find her, is there? Gotta keep moving. Stay moving, stay alive. She decides she’ll head back to the van, the nice, safe, van with the locking doors and the ability to run hags _right_ over. Surely the police have cleared off by now. Only problem is, she’s gotten turned around, isn’t entirely sure which direction she’s come from.

That’s when the moaning starts.

One hundred percent, beyond all doubt, it’s a zombie moan. A witch howl. The sound a ghoul would make as it unhinged its necrotic jaw and prepared to eat you, using its foul claws to rip you viscerally into chunks it will swallow whole and digest over weeks like a snake. It’s a fucking monster, or a murderer, or a monster-that-is-also-a-murderer, and Jo Trohman is going to get eviscerated and die in these woods, and her last act on earth will have been running from the police over a petty offense, _straight into the jaws of death_.

“The penalty for overfilling a dance hall wasn’t worth this,” she whimpers, not even sure anymore of which way to run. “I’m too talented to die this young. I’m a _guitar prodigy_ , I’m better than _any dude_!” she implores the general woods, stumbling fearfully into the deep darkness.

But the moaning doesn’t care about her musical abilities. The moaning is getting faster. The moaning is getting louder. The thing that’s moaning sounds _excited_ … and it’s getting closer.

 

Pete makes the sound again as Pat’s fingers tangle in her hair, pressing her face deeper between Pat’s thighs. She can’t help it: full of Pat like this, the taste and smell and sweet slipperiness of her, Pete is insensible. She kneels on wet leaves and broken branches and cold dirt like it’s the mosaic floor of a high temple, like she can’t believe her luck to find herself supplicating here in these hallowed halls. Honestly, that’s how she feels about Pat’s cunt. Hallowed halls. More than her fair share of luck. Emptying herself out in feverish, orgiastic _worship_. This is a tent revival. Pat’s shorts are tangled around her ankles and her knees are bowed out and she’s leaning back against a tree, her hand pressing the back of Pete’s head with desperate pleasure, and yes, Pete’s soul is being saved, here. Pete is licking her way to heaven.

“Fuck yes, baby,” Pat pants, and she tries to keep her voice smooth like she’s in control, but Pete can hear the ragged edges. “Look at me. Look at me—” Pete looks up, Pat’s flushed face silver in the scarce moonlight, Pat’s mouth open and lip sucked in, Pat breathing like she’s building something she plans to break to pieces. Their eyes meet. “Good girl,” Pat exhales, and when she grins her approval, Pete feels muscles move inside her, a delicious shift of some deep pleasure. Pete makes a sound that’s a swallowed half-howl, low and dirty desperation, the way making Pat feel good snags up inside her so that every hitched breath from her girlfriend’s lips is a tight twinge in Pete’s clenched clit. Her chin is so wet it runs down her throat, some mix of her own eager spit and the golden juice of this stonefruit woman. Her chin is not the only part of her that’s wet enough to drip.

Pat’s thighs squeeze the sides of Pete’s face and her weight jerks, her spine tightening with some intensity, and Pete feels it ripple through them both. Pat tugs her head and Pete licks deeper, sucking anything she can reach, rolling the prize of Pat’s clit lightly against her teeth, pulling it deep into her hungry mouth, rubbing it against the ridged roof, starving for it, begging. Her mouth is too full for her to speak but her lips move anyway, brushing a prayer into Pat’s most sensitive skin, _please please please, come for me, wreck me ruin me be mine please._ She grips the back of Pat’s thighs, supporting her, pulling her closer, not caring if she drowns in here, half-hoping that’s exactly what she does. _To die in your thighs is such a heavenly way to die_ , she thinks, not for the first time. Her mouth moves hot and sloppy, without dignity. Pat is the only thing in life she needs.

Pat releases the sputtering start of an _oh_ , and Pete knows that means she’s close, Pete knows that means the gates of fucking heaven are opening up, because when Pat sings Pete’s got her, when Pat sings and it vibrates through every _nerve_ of her, she’s there, Pete’s there—Pete’s own excitement rattles out of her chest and Pat’s tipped-back throat is white in the moonlight and Pete is staring, staring, made entirely of thrumming blood and _love_ , and—

With a tremendous crash and an earsplitting scream, they are abruptly no longer alone in this forest.

 

When Jo sees a terrible beast ripping her friend apart, she doesn’t hesitate. Some might call her a  hero. She grabs the nearest fallen branch and wallops the attacking creature, smacking it away from Pat’s soft underbelly.

Listen. The swing is already in motion before she realizes what’s going on. Critical momentum. It couldn’t have been stopped. She tries to turn the blow at the end, but it sends Pete sprawling anyway. Pete lands on her back and stares up at Jo wild-eyed, her face wet with fluids Jo _wishes_ she had to speculate about, her breath rattling in her chest exactly like a monster’s would.

“What—the—fuck,” says Pat, who has struggled back into her shorts. Her mask is askew and her hair has tree bark in it, but she’s managing to pull off a stern and disapproving vibe pretty well anyway.

“I saved your life,” Jo tells her. “And beheld sights that my virginal eyes—”

“Don’t even start about your virginal eyes,” Pete growls from the ground.

“I thought you were devouring her!” says Jo.

“She _was_ ,” says Pat. Jo has rarely, if ever, heard her sound so cross. And Pat’s not even the one who got whomped with a branch.

“Okay, I mean, I thought she was like, the Blair Witch, devouring you in a _nonpleasurable and nonconsensual_ way. Listen. Listen. I assessed the scene, I saw danger, and despite my terror, I did not hesitate. I sprang to your rescue! It wouldn’t be totally unreasonable for you to thank me.”   

Pete and Pat start yelling at once. Lucky for Jo, this means many of their words get lost.

“Oh, did you want to talk about what was _reasonable_? Because I have some thoughts—”

“The fucking _Blair Witch_? Are you kidding me right now? You thought the _Blair Witch_ —”

“—wouldn’t be ‘totally unreasonable’ for you to _apologize_ for _hitting me with_ —”

“—told Andy it was too much for your superstitious ass, I never should have let you watch—”

“—completely knocked on my ass and you want accolades like you saved her from a pussy-sucking fiend—”

At that moment, the ghastly figure of what is this time definitely, absolutely, a Guillermo-del-Toro-endorsed _verifiable monster_ bursts into the clearing, its approach totally muffled by all the noise they’re making. Its hulking, jagged form and oily, rippled skin gleam menacingly in the moonlight, its twisted shape striking paralyzing terror into their hearts. Because she is a hero, Jo takes a wild swing with her branch. First she’s going to save all of their damn lives, then they’ll have a proper conversation about who’s _too gullible for horror as a genre_.    

But the monster leaps back with a windsuit-swish and cries, “Jesus, Jo! Are you trying to kill me?”

“You—I thought you were a monster,” Jo says weakly. Pete, who has apparently picked herself up and wiped her face off, wrenches the branch out of Jo’s hands and throws it as far as she can in the opposite direction.

Andy’s hand flutters to their chest. “Really?” they say. They sound touched. “I knew it was a good costume.”

 

Andy leads them back to the van with confidence. Either their sense of dead reckoning is truly impressive, or the little spit of woods between the Knights of Columbus hall and the nearest strip mall is really not very large. Jo is jumping at every shadow, Pete is stroking secret circles against the palm of Pat’s hand, and Andy can’t stop laughing. Pat’s pelvic region is tight and throbbing with frustration, snatched back from the brink of orgasm by mortal terror, but Pete’s hand on hers is a promise of _to be continued_.

“Are you bruised?” Pat murmurs to the woman she still can’t believe she gets to call _girlfriend_.

“Are you swollen?” Pete murmurs back. It thrills through Pat’s middle, winding her tighter.

“You tell me,” Pat tugs Pete’s hand to her, brushes Pete’s knuckles against the tight heat between her legs. Pete lets out a tiny version of the moan that got her laid out by half a log in the first place and Pat shivers from the light touch.

“— _her own fault_ for making such guttural noises,” Jo is explaining to Andy up ahead. “In some versions of this night, I’m a hero. I want the record to reflect that.”

“Okay, Slash,” Andy says, slinging a swooshy arm over Jo’s shoulder. “Your valor in the face of danger is truly inspiring. Although,” Andy adds, playfully hipchecking their friend, “we gotta have another conversation about your sex life, if Mark isn’t making you make sounds like that.”

“Sounds like the horrific flesh-eating infant-sacrificing Evanston hag?”

“Exactly like that. Maybe if you’re lucky, I’ll show you sometime,” Andy teases.

“Hey Jo?” Pat calls, because even from back here she can tell Jo’s too stunned and blushing to respond.

“Hey what.”

“Next time you’re tempted to save me from the jaws of death? Just let her take me.”

Pete laughs, low and close to her ear, and grazes her lips against Pat’s jaw. Her heart beats in her whole body. And somehow, police bust and aggravated assault and interrupted orgasm and all, Pat is having an even better Halloween than last year.  
 


End file.
